Boiler and electric heater replacement

Unknown

a long time we offer a boiler protection contract , which means we replace the boiler free of charge if it's condemned . The only item they have to pay for is a burner if it's needed , and this one surely needed it . Strictly speaking by the contract wording , we only have to change the boiler and burner . Since the coil was not connected , we did not have to remove that old , corroded electric heater . But we worked it into the job anyway , the least we can do for a long faithful customer . Besides , she has to burn oil now to make hot water - benefits both of us with the 2nd highest electric rates we got .

Unknown

We use the Burnham RSA series

for the boiler replacements . Our sales department always tries to upsell a cast iron for an added charge , but they seldom go for it . There are some pipes that are run like the crow flies , but it was a hard day . It was just me and Tony , and he is kind of new . We did get help to pull the old boiler and heater .

When I was pulling the 220 wires out of the circuit panel to the heater , the ground wire touched the outside of the box and I could see a little discharge going on . It stopped after I ground it for about 10 seconds . This happened with the 2 power wires disconnected . Do the elements in an electric heater retain any power when it's off ?

techheat_2

The customer got that job for the price of a Riello?I've seen a few boilers that were replaced gratis under "boiler coverage" and believe me they didn't look like that! Another excellent job!

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Unknown

Yeah , I've seen a few

quickie cut and runs , I've done a bunch myself when we subbed for a local oil company which had the F Contract for customers who wanted it ( boiler coverage ) . Everything except the boiler block was reused on these jobs . Needless to say , we kept many rubber gaskets on hand for the circs . Thanks Techheat .

Matt Undy

1. No the heater is jsut a big resistor, it stores no energy. There perhaps could be a volt or 2 generated through electrolysis but that probably wouldn't cause a spark you could see.

2. That wire is a ground only on a water heater, it should never be connected to any current carying wires unless there is a short somewhere. A water heater only has current runign between the 2 line wires, it does not need nor does it have a connection to the neutral (though the ground and neutral are probably the same bus in the panel if the panel is also the service entrance).

I would check for voltage between the plumbing and the electrical grounding system of the building, there may be a problem. The other problem may be that the neutral of the service isn't bonded to a ground and the plumbing or some impropper plumbing repairs have dsiconected the service's bonding to the plumbing. Evne worse, the neutral from the utility may be broken.

In short an electrician needs to look at it and figure out what the problem is. It could ba anythign from a bad neutral which will cause over and under voltage to improper bonding that could cause a shock to some appliance shorted to the plumbing.

I never can keep this short but it is a hazard that needs to be fixed.

Matt